The Gralfoy Affair (or, The Oblivious Ones) - Dramione

Chapter Thirteen

From the Ministry of Magic, Draco Malfoy apparated to Fleet Street, to the offices of his family's solicitors. It was an entirely unpleasant meeting. There may have been an audible gasp as he swept through the high mahogany front doors, tall and thin, white-haired, and chillingly lordly as Lucius himself. With Lucius and Narcissa incarcerated, the usual care and obsequies the firm had always lavished on its Malfoy clients had deteriorated to what Draco, railing at a hastily assembled boardroom of senior partners, described as "gross negligence." In fairness, the British wizarding legal community was still getting accustomed to the idea that prison was NOT supposed to drive people mad. This explained some of the lawyers' failure to bring a motion to have Narcissa relocated to St. Mungo's until Draco demanded it. If the court psychiatrists agreed with him about her mental deterioration in prison, Narcissa would be able to await her reconciliation hearings in a forensic hospital instead of a cell.

At Cross Crispin's, he had found her a cackling, conniving mess. And then he had inflamed the situation by fighting with her about Hermione. He hadn't even gone to her when she stood up to embrace him as he left. It had been a mistake. No one is ready for it -- that first moment when a doting parent becomes someone who needs to be doted on, when the roles of caregiving flip. It is no less shocking for being inevitable. And he couldn't have handled it any worse. Everything he said to her was wrong.

Fighting with the lawyers had been satisfying at the time, but even that was icing over into cold comfort. He'd paid them a huge retainer to start Narcissa's new proceedings, and it made him feel like they had won in the end after all. It didn't matter. Prison was destroying his mother's mind, and once St. Mungo's got involved, she could be treated, made into someone more like herself again. Even if that meant bringing in that awful Dr. Berlant, it would still be better than to leave her sitting in a cell raving about impossible heirs.

It was Narcissa who was wrong about that. She had to be. Of course he'd cast the contraception spell himself. His father knew better than to believe his interdiction against under-aged partying would be sufficient to guard Draco's teenaged purity, and he'd made sure to warn his son to always cast the spell himself to be sure it was done and done with a proper commitment to preventing unapproved heirs. Malfoy hadn't even considered the possibility that Hermione might be the one of the pair of them to do it. It was his responsibility to her, to himself, and to his family, current and future. No, his mother had to be wrong.

Still, here he was, standing on the same pier on the Thames where he'd just disembarked from the Hightail the day before.

He would leave for Canada immediately.

No, there was no need.

Narcissa was mad at the moment. He would stay in London and try to look angelic and trustworthy at her mental fitness hearings, leaning on the lawyers to make sure she was moved to St. Mungo's as quickly as possible.

But what about Hermione? He had to know for sure that she wasn't -- wasn't -- anyway, it's not the kind of exchange people should have by albatross. His hand closed around the Muggle-wand in his pocket. Why didn't he leave Hermione with one of her own so he could at least talk to her through the bloody thing? Stupid backward --

No, he had to leave today.

But then he'd be in the way of her work with her parents. That was the whole reason he'd gone in the first place.

So he should stay.

But how could he survive any longer without knowing?

No, there was nothing to know. It was a bunch of raving nonsense.

Yet...

"Oi! Malfoy! Draco!"

He jumped, raised his collar over his face, and looked about. A large man in a heavy beard was bearing down the gangway of a newly docked ship, grinning a little foolishly. Malfoy stared back, noting the unusual length of the man's arms. That was how he knew. "Goyle?"